King's Pleasure (15 page)

“O
h my God! I can’t believe we’re about to have a baby,” DeShawn declared, rushing toward her like a linebacker.

Before Leigh knew it, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her and lifted her off the floor.

“I knew something was up. You’re acting so strange. You should have told me.” He bounced her up and down.

Leigh’s eyes bulged as the tumultuous waves in her stomach increased. “DeShawn, honey. Please, set me back down.”

“A baby,” he shouted. The bouncing transitioned into her being swung around the kitchen. “I’m going to be a father. I can’t believe this!” Then just as suddenly he stopped and put her feet down back on the floor. “I’m going to be a father,” he repeated, somberly. “That means that I’m going to have to be…” He sucked in a deep breath as though someone had just handed him his maturity pills. “Okay…” He bobbed his head. “I can do this.
We
can do this.”

Leigh wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince her or himself.

You have to tell him now.
There was no way around it now. She couldn’t have him leaving there thinking that she was carrying his child. In fact, any second now he was going to start asking questions so that he could do his own calculations.

“So how far along? Two months—three?”

Oh, Lord.

Smiling, DeShawn glanced down at her belly, and then pressed his hand against it. “I bet it’s a boy.”

“DeShawn.” She stepped away from his hand. “We need to talk.”

“I’ll say. How long have you known?”

“Please, just hear me out. I—” A sudden violent wave of bile gurgled up her throat. Leigh slapped a hand over her mouth, spun and then made a mad dash to the bathroom.

To Leigh’s dismay, DeShawn rushed in behind her as she upchucked most of the water she’d just drank since she hadn’t eaten at the party and her stomach was empty. “Oh my God,” DeShawn said excitedly. “This is really happening. We’re really about to do this.” He turned toward her medicine cabinet. “What do you need, baby? Can you take Pepto-Bismol?” He rummaged around the cabinet some more. “What about some Alka-Seltzer?”

Leigh moaned as she sat next to the toilet.
This cannot be happening.

“A daddy,” DeShawn said. “Me.”

“DeShawn,” she said, lifting her head with tears streaming down her face. “Sweetheart, I don’t know any other way to say this, but—”

“You know what? I’ll just call the team doctor—well, I’m not officially on the team
yet
—and he’s technically not a pediatrician—or do you need to see one of those gyno-people for this? I can’t remember.” He was rambling on badly.

“DeShawn,” Leigh tried again. It was clear that there was no way that he was going to take any of this well.

“Hold on, baby, let me just call and—” He was still smiling and shaking his head. “Wait until everyone hears about this. A father!” He pulled his cell phone from his ear and looked at the screen. “Now, I know I’ve got the right number in this thing.”

“DeShawn, please! Listen to me!”

“I’m listening, baby.” He dragged his eyes from the phone and smiled. “You just don’t realize how happy you’ve made me. Hell, I didn’t know how happy I would be hearing something like this. A father!” He still sounded stunned. “And, baby—” he knelt down on the floor next to her by the toilet bowl. “I promise you— I
swear
that you’re going to see a changed man from here on out.”

“DeShawn—”

“No, baby. Please hear me out. I know that I’ve put you through some unnecessary changes, but that’s over now. You hear me? From here on out, I’m going to be the best father and
husband
I possibly can be. And—”

“Shh…” Leigh cupped his face in her hands. “DeShawn, this is soooo hard, but…I can’t marry you.”

He blinked and then shook his head as if there was something wrong with his hearing. “What?”

Leigh’s guts twisted inside of her. “I’m sorry. But I should have never accepted your proposal. And you’ve got to believe me that I didn’t know I was pregnant until today.”

His smile wavered, but then it brightened again as if he figured out what the problem was. “Leigh, honey, I know that you’ve been having some doubts. I mean, even I had some. But I’m telling you now, this news changes all that. I swear I’m going to do right by you. I’m going to—”

Leigh’s patience snapped and she just blurted it out. “DeShawn, it’s not your baby!”

“Y
ou dragged her into the freezer?” Quentin asked, kicking his feet up on the corner of Jeremy’s desk. “Ha! If you don’t mind my saying, that’s pretty
cold
-blooded.

“It was the only place I could think of at the time that we could be alone and not worry about being overheard,” Jeremy offered weakly, tugging off his tie and tossing it onto the small glass coffee table. Next he started unbuttoning his shirt while he continued to replay the night’s events in his head.

“You know, this whole thing just blows my mind,” he said. “For years I’d heard about my boy’s chick. But he always kept her on the sidelines and we never actually met. And then suddenly—boom! This is craziness!”

“Of course he kept her on the sidelines. That’s a true playa move.”

Jeremy frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Come on. If you had to guess between you and your boy, which one of you pulled the most women, who would you pick?”

Jeremy tilted his head with a cocky grin, giving Quentin the “well, I don’t want to brag” look.

“Exactly!” Quentin grinned. “A playa never introduces his serious girl to a bigger playa than himself. That’s just asking for trouble. Funny thing is your man still fumbled the ball—and she wandered into someone else’s court. And here we are.” Q tossed up his hands. “One big-ass mess!”

“You’re making sports analogies now?”

“I use whatever I have on hand.” Quentin stretched back in the leather chair and folded his arms behind his head.

Jeremy plopped down onto the leather sofa and watched the security cameras that monitored the club’s main floor. He saw all the swirling hips, popping booties and bouncing breasts, but none of it moved him. All he could think about was Leigh’s angry face and how she’d tried to pelt him to death with frozen food.

God, she was breathtaking.

A smile hitched the corners of Jeremy’s mouth. All the while he was trying to breathe fire, there was still a very strong part of him that wanted to drag her into his arms and smother her ruby-red lips with a passionate kiss. He missed her. Missed kissing her lips, smelling her skin, and definitely missed the feeling of what it was like to be buried deep inside of her.

The truth of the matter was Jeremy needed that freezer to stop him from embarrassing himself. Even now, it pained and disgusted him that he was actually attracted to his best friend’s fiancée. Sure, he was mad—but if he was going to be honest, he was jealous, too.

“I need a drink.” Jeremy popped up off the couch and strolled over to the bar. “Want one?” He reached for an extra glass.

“Nah, I’m good.”

Stunned, Jeremy glanced up.

“What?” Q asked, shrugging. “I know how to say no.”

“Learn something new every day,” Jeremy said, pouring himself a brandy.

“So have you decided yet?” his cousin asked.

Jeremy lips twisted. “Decided what?”

“Have you decided whether you’re going to steal your best friend’s girl or not?”

The question surprised Jeremy so much that he spewed out half his drink. “What?”

“Come on, man. I don’t stutter and your ears don’t flap. I can take one look at you and see that right now you’re thinking about Baby Girl, and it has nothing to do with whether or not she’s going to break things off with Roy. You still want her for yourself.”

A voice in the back of Jeremy’s head told him to deny it, but he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. Had he been thinking about that?

Q shook his head. “Fascinating. Now I get to see how the other side works.”

“You’re talking in riddles.” Jeremy refreshed his drink.

“No. I’m speaking English.” Jeremy flashed him an annoyed look.

Quentin’s hands shot up. “Don’t worry. I get it. No more lectures. Just think of me as a casual observer of this D-list Shakespearean tragedy.”

“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’?”

“Touché.” Q tapped his temple and then watched as his cousin finished off his drink in one gulp.

Jeremy grew uncomfortable under such scrutiny. So much so that after he drained his glass, he quickly poured himself another one.

“Fascinating.”

“Don’t start.”

Q’s hands came up. “No judgment.”

“Who are you kidding? You haven’t stopped judging me since I found out that me and Roy were in love with the same girl.”

Q’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “
Love?
Who said anything about anyone being in love? I thought you just wanted to screw the girl’s brains out again. You’re in love?”

“No!” Jeremy shook his head to clear his thoughts. “I meant
like.
We like the same girl.” Quentin’s thunder-struck look remained. “Yeah, because I get those two words confused all the time.” He smacked the palm of his hand against his head. “Damn—you hardly know the girl. Does it happen
that
fast?”

“Q—”

“No. I mean, really. You just learned her name tonight. Did you fall and bump your head? Are you sure she didn’t slip something in your drink when you weren’t looking? How about voodoo? Did you see any strange dolls lying around with pins in them?”

“It was just a slip of the tongue,” Jeremy persisted, mainly because he couldn’t believe he’d said it himself. “My bad. It won’t happen again.”
Love
.
Please
.

Quentin’s eyes narrowed as he studied his cousin. A worry line creased his brow. “I swear, you Kings are going to turn my hair gray. I should have found more reliable business partners. He lowered his feet from the desk and then headed off to the bar. “You know what? I think I will take that drink now.”

“Be my guest.”

“I’m just going to have one,” Q said.

Pause
.

“Are you monitoring how much I drink now?”

Jeremy watched his cousin. “Who are you talking to, Q?”

“Huh? What?” Quentin glanced around. “Oh. No one.”

Jeremy made a note to himself to renew his effort to be careful about what he said around his emotionally fragile and potentially unstable cousin.
Damn. Maybe I should have a heart-to-heart with him. I’m really starting to worry about him.

For a few minutes Jeremy’s thoughts were pulled away from Leigh, as he contemplated whether he should be concerned—
really
concerned—about Q’s mental state.

“Now, back to your little problem,” Quentin said, making his whiskey sour. “Do you believe what she told you tonight?”

The question caught Jeremy off guard. And for a second, he didn’t know what his cousin was talking about.

“Was your little freak fest a one-time thing or is her game tighter than you two knuckleheads realize?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think she’s really going to break off the engagement?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think she’ll tell your boy about the two of you?”

“I don’t—”

“Better hope not.”

“I don’t— Wait, why? It’s not like I knew—”

“But now you’ve also missed your opportunity to come clean
first
. By the way, I want to be on record that I told you to do that. If she tells him and you didn’t—trust and believe there’s going to be a misunderstanding and some furniture moving around.”

“I like these no-lecture sessions we have.”

“When you see a baby reaching for a hot stove, you smack their hand away.”

Jeremy wanted to say something slick, but unfortunately Quentin was making too much sense. His directive to Leigh was for her to end the engagement. He wasn’t specific about how. “I know the risk,” Jeremy mumbled and then wandered back over to the sofa and plopped down.

Quentin had a hard time trying to hide his irritation. “Just so that I understand, you’re seriously willing to risk the friendship of the man you have known your
whole
life, a man who’s practically like a brother to you—a real blood brother—for a woman?”

“Roy deserves to know the truth.”

“Then why didn’t
you
tell him?”

Jeremy opened his mouth but was cut off.

“And before you blow smoke up my ass, let me warn you that we’re waaay past the B.S. now. This isn’t about an accidental one-nighter. This is about you wanting your boy’s girl. You’re rooting for the bust-up of this engagement, just so that you can swoop in and steal his girl for yourself!”

“That’s not—”

“Don’t do it!” Q shouted. “Don’t you dare lie to me! And before you bark at me about this having nothing to do with
my
problems, remember there are waay too many similarities in our situations. And I’m not going to be beaten into feeling guilty just so you can sit there wrapped in some fake-ass, moral-superiority robe to justify your jacked-up decisions.
You
should have told your boy—your
blood brother
—the truth. The girl is irrelevant. This is about brothers—and what you
do
and
do not
do to each other!”

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Jeremy jumped, thankful to whoever it was at the door for saving him. “Come in!”

The door swung open. A blast of music from the main floor filled the office as an angry blur stormed through the door.

Jeremy jumped up. “Roy!”